Abstract
Despite how culturally similar contemporary Australia and Canada are on the surface—both multicultural nations with common colonial roots where English is the predominant language—their cultural values, as reflected by Australia’s and Canada’s contrasting personalities, are not identical. How each society evolved seems linked to the disproportionate effect culturally influential Anglo-Celtic groups had in each society. Although Australia and Canada received immigrants from throughout the British Isles in their formative periods, their proportion was not the same. Contrary to the Canadian experience, the Irish of Australia appear to have profoundly influenced the Australian national character. The question that needs to be answered is how.
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Notes
Alex Inkeles, National Character (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1997), 17.
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When personality scales measuring a broad array of traits are properly translated and administered to members of other cultures, they tend to show results similar to the five-factor structure of personality, that is, the five basic dimensions of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience, familiar to contemporary psychologists. Robert R. McCrae and Oliver P. John, “An Introduction to the Five-Factor Model and Its Applications,” Journal of Personality 60, no. 2 (1992): 175–215.
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From his linguistic analysis, Bert Peeters observes that Australians tend to set sports heroes apart from high achievers by the use of phrases such as “except (in) sport,” “with the exception of sport,” or “except for sporting legends.” Another common Australian linguistic procedure is to use conjunctions such as “despite” or “in spite of” followed by a reference to the tall poppy syndrome. According to Peeters, “Australians love their sporting heroes, but only—broadly speaking—as long as modesty and unpretentiousness (especially in victory) prevail.” Bert Peeters, “‘Thou Shalt Not Be a Tall Poppy’: Describing an Australian Communicative (and Behavioral) Norm,” Intercultural Pragmatics 1, no. 1 (2004): 79–80.
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Smith’s work was written during a pessimistic era in late-nineteenth-century Canada when regions from east to west were isolated and the perception that English Canada would eventually assimilate with US social and cultural life was rising. Canadian Confederation was seen by Smith as artificially held together by corrupt politicians and commercial interests. Carl Berger, introduction to Canada and the Canadian Question, by Goldwin Smith, vi–vii. Smith’s views were highly controversial. He postulated, “How much does an ordinary Canadian know or care about Australia, an ordinary Australian about Canada, or an ordinary Englishman, Scotchman, or Irishman about either? The feeling of all the Colonists towards the mother country, when you appeal to it, is thoroughly kind, as is that of the mother country towards the Colonies. But Canadian notions of British politics are hazy, and still more hazy are British notions of the politics of Canada. … A grand idea may be at the same time practical. The idea of a United Continent of North America, securing free trade and intercourse over a vast area, with external safety and internal peace, is no less practical than it is grand.” Goldwin Smith, Canada and the Canadian Question (Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 1971).
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© 2015 Arthur J. Wolak
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Wolak, A.J. (2015). National Character. In: The Development of Managerial Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137475633_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137475633_3
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